


Unlikely Companions

by xLovelyPoisonx



Category: Kuroko no Basuke | Kuroko's Basketball
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-12-21
Updated: 2014-12-21
Packaged: 2018-03-02 17:12:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,095
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2819918
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/xLovelyPoisonx/pseuds/xLovelyPoisonx
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Kise Ryouta is a boy that is often described as too pretty to truly be male. In order to escape the adults that taunt and tease him, he often visits the forest near his home. He runs into trouble in this very forest one day, but is saved by an unlikely hero.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Unlikely Companions

**Author's Note:**

> Hello! I'd like to say thank you, first of all, for giving this fic of mine a chance. It's my first published work here, and it's a work in progress at the moment. I hope you enjoy reading it as it comes out! It's a special gift for a tumblr friend of mine. She's an absolute sweetheart, and honestly, deserves much better than I'm able to provide her in the way of writing. But I do hope that she likes this attempt of mine.  
> I would also like to thank my best friend who is my beta reader for this, and likely my future works as well.  
> Constructive criticism is welcome! Please be gentle with me.

 It's a memory from over ten years ago, but it's still as fresh in his mind as if it had happened just yesterday- the day he was saved by, not a knight in shining armor, but a knight clad in fur as dark as the night sky.

Kise was a child too beautiful to _truly_ be a boy, many had proclaimed. The blonde wasn't entirely sure if it was because of this, or if his sisters had simply been born with brains that were wired specifically to enact the most heinous acts of cruelty against him, but they treated him as if he were one of them. Well, not exactly. They respected each other, to a degree, at least. His sisters treated him more like a doll than anything.

It was for this very reason that the boy had taken to running out of the house and to the forest not far from his home. There, he could be himself, and do what he wanted without the fear of being ambushed at random to be dressed in frills and lace.

Kise loved his family, he truly did, but he hated being mistaken for a girl. He was a boy! He wanted to be called 'handsome' not 'pretty' or 'cute.' But no one seemed to care about what he wanted. The adults would all laugh to one another whenever he would stamp his foot and proclaim that someday he'd be taller than all of them, and be the handsomest man they ever saw. Someday they'd see that he wasn't kidding, though. So he drank lots of milk, and ate as many of his vegetables as he could stand to, all for the sake of one day growing into an incredibly handsome (and tall) man that would never be mistaken for a girl.

In the forest, he could skip rocks over the water of the lake in the center of a clearing that he'd dubbed 'his special place', climb trees, walk across fallen tree trunks and pretend that he was a circus performer walking across the tight rope over a crowd of hundreds of people, and just be the boy no one seemed to want him to be back at home.

They had been suffering from a dry spell, he'd heard. Kise didn't know exactly what that meant, but he nodded when his parents told him that it was bad- that was enough for him.

Unfortunately, being unknowledgable on the subject as he was, the blonde boy didn't realize that the dry spell impacted the wildlife as well. The animals were suffering because there was an insufficient amount of water available, and predators were more likely to show aggression toward humans, whereas they would normally avoid humans at all costs.

Kise was completely unaware of this fact. The blonde was quite shocked when a young wolf approached him. Being young, and naïve, he assumed that it was friendly- like the doggies he was used to playing with. He walked toward it, oblivious to the danger he was placing himself in until he heard a low warning growl rumble in the beast's chest. It was in that moment that he realized this was not a friendly doggy looking for a belly rub. This was a predator looking to fill its belly.

What happened next was a bit of a blur for the boy. He recalled stumbling backward in a desperate attempt to get away from the creature that meant to end him, only to trip over something and fall to the hard ground below. Tears welled up in amber eyes, and he blinked rapidly in an attempt to clear his vision. It was a mistake. With his vision clear, he could see the beast stalking toward him with malicious intent gleaming in its golden orbs. He cried, lifted an arm to cover his face as if that would deter the wolf, and waited for the bite- that never came.

A loud yelp pierced the air, followed by a thud, and then a series of growls, and the sound of claws tearing through flesh. There was a final whimper...And then silence.

Kise lowered his arm slowly, amber eyes wide with fear and curiosity as he looked around frantically. He was still alive! And the wolf was gone now. The blonde was relieved. But his relief was short lived. His eyes landed on a figure standing not too far from where he sat. A cat, larger than any cat he'd ever seen, with fur as black as night and two piercing sapphire eyes.  
“You...You saved me?” He croaked questioningly. His heart felt as though it were seated in his throat, pounding out an irregular beat.

The beast didn't respond- obviously!- but its eyes seemed to convey something more human that one would expect to see in a cat. It lowered its head, stalking toward him, and for the second time that day Kise feared that he would be devoured. However, rather than eat him, it snuffled at him- starting with his hair. A rough tongue licked up one side of his face, pushing his hair back into an awkward and unattractive style, to which he protested with an indignant, “Hey!” that the cat seemed to find incredibly amusing, because it did the same to the other side.

“Hey, hey! Knock it off!” It was difficult to say this with conviction, however, as that rough tongue tickled. He was protesting through giggles.

When it became evident that words alone wouldn't be enough to stop the creature's “assault”, Kise decided to take action instead. The little boy wrapped his arms around the cat's neck, holding it in place as best he could with his tiny arms.

And it seemed that this tactic had worked! The cat gave pause, and for a moment, was eerily still. It felt as though the rest of the world had stopped alongside it. There were no birds chirping, nor cicadas chattering. It was as if the entirety of the forest was holding its breath, waiting to see what would become of the foolish boy that dared restrain such a beast.

Then, without warning, the cat blew out a rough breath through its nostrils and plopped down. And the moment was over, just like that. The forest seemed to erupt with activity once more; birds called excitedly to one another, and the cicadas resumed their cheerful chattering.

But the voice of the boy was unmistakable, even under all the other sounds, as he murmured into the dark fur of the cat's neck a soft, “Thank you.”


End file.
